Showboat News

The pilot house of the tug Huntington recently returned to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum after extensive metal refurbishing and repair.All restoration work was performed by E. H. Harvey Metal Working Co. of Easton, Md., and included sandblasting the exterior, removing lead paint, and preparing the exterior for final painting. The pilot house is currently stored in one of CBMM’s off-campus locations, in anticipation of restoring Huntington’s wood trim and interior during the warmer weather.With generous support from Chesapeake Shipbuilding…

Divers on Friday pulled the last four bodies from the wreckage of a "duck boat" that sank in a storm in a Missouri lake, killing 17 people in one of the deadliest U.S. tourist incidents in recent years.The World War Two-style amphibious vehicle was filled with 31 passengers including children when a microburst storm hit Table Rock Lake outside the tourist city of Branson, Missouri, on Thursday. A video of the incident showed it battered by waves.Wendy Doucey, an office manager at the Stone County sheriff's office, said that divers had recovered the four bodies from the sunken duck boat. The vehicle was 80 feet (24 m) under water."It's important that we find out for sure what events did occur," Governor Michael Parson said at a Friday morning news conference.

DeJong & Lebet, Inc. announced that Norman N. DeJong passed away on November 7, 2013. Norman was 75 years old at the time of his passing. Norman was one of the founding partners of DeJong & Lebet, Inc., Naval Architects, in 1983 in Jacksonville, Florida. He was born in Blokker, Noord Holland, the Netherlands, immigrating to the US after earning a BS in Naval Architecture at HTS Haarlem in 1959. He worked at Phillip F. Spaulding in Seattle, and NASSCO in San Diego before moving to Jacksonville, FL to work at Gibbs / Aerojet General in 1963.

Henry Hillman, Jr., president of American West Steamboat in Seattle, announced early in December that Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Inc., had been selected to build the “Empress of the North,” a 360 by 60 ft. sternwheeler that will be the Whidbey Island, Washington’s yard largest single-boat contract. The vessel, which will accommodate 236 overnight cruise guests and 84 crewmembers, will be utilized for cruises in season in southeast Alaska and the Columbia/Snake River complex. Reportedly, the “Empress” will be the first sternwheeler on the Inside Passage in more than 100 years. Hillman said that construction and outfitting costs are expected to exceed $50 million. The United States Maritime Administration will provide a loan guarantee to facilitate funding of the project, he said.

The Minnesota Centennial Showboat is returning to the Mississippi River. The Department of Theatre Arts and Dance of the University of Minnesota is announcing plans, pending approval by the Board of Regents, to purchase a historic replica of the nineteenth century floating theaters being built by the Padelford Packet Boat Company of St. Paul. The original showboat, also known as the General John Newton, was acquired and renovated in 1958 during the celebration of Minnesota's first 100 years of statehood. Throughout the next 35 years, more than 400,000 people from all 50 states and 48 nations attended productions by University theatre students-from Shakespearean comedies to vintage melodramas, mysteries, and musicals.

American West Steamboat Company is adding a third vessel, the Columbia Queen, to its fleet of luxury overnight small cruise ships that will operate on the Columbia, Willamette and Snake Rivers. In a recent auction held by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), American West Steamboat Company won the bid for the Columbia Queen, formerly owned by American Classic Voyages’ Delta Queen Steamboat Company. MARAD took possession of the Columbia Queen after American Classic Voyages filed bankruptcy in 2002. Pending the close of the sale, American West Steamboat Company will take possession of the Columbia Queen around mid-July at which time she will undergo some refurbishment before her first cruise on the Columbia River in the spring of 2003.

Like most of the tourism business, the excursion/dinner boat market took a big "hit" right after 9/11. Markets that were geared for conventions and depended on fly-in business were especially hard hit since airline bookings went into a steep nosedive right after the terrorist attack and customers could not reach the destinations that offered riverboat entertainment. Most directly impacted by the World Trade Center attack was VIP Yacht Charters, a New York City dining yacht company located a few blocks from the WTC. Minutes after the attack the company immediately began a rescue effort shuttling 40,000-50,000 people across the river to New Jersey and opened their commissary to rescue workers feeding hundreds of workers at no charge.